Methods for evaluating term support in patent-related documents

ABSTRACT

In one embodiment, a method of evaluating a term in a patent-related document includes receiving a selected term, generating one or more variant suggestions related to the selected term, displaying the one or more variant suggestions, receiving one or more selected variant suggestions from the one or more variant suggestions, and associating the one or more selected variant suggestions with the selected term. In another embodiment, a method of evaluating a term in a patent-related document includes displaying a list of terms appearing in a first patent-related document and a second patent-related document, displaying a graphical representation of whether or not individual terms in the list of terms appear in the first patent-related document or the second patent-related document, and receiving a selected term from the list of terms. The method further includes displaying one or more variant suggestions related to the selected term.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of PCT/US13/76160, entitled Systemsand Methods for Patent-Related Document Analysis and Searching filed onDec. 18, 2013, which claims priority to U.S. Provisional PatentApplication No. 61/738,703, entitled “Systems and Methods for SearchingDocuments and Related Images” and filed on Dec. 18, 2012, and U.S.Provisional Patent Application No. 61/,880,449, entitled “Systems andMethods for Patent-related document Analysis and Image Searching” andfiled on Sep. 20, 2013.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure generally relates to the field of computerizedsystems. More particularly, disclosed embodiments relate to computerizedsystems and methods for patent-related document analysis and imagesearching.

BACKGROUND

Various databases and tools exist for patent-related documents, such asthose provided by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and foreignpatent agencies. Other search tools also include MicroPatent™, PatBase™,and Delphion™. These search tools may permit users to search forpatent-related documents using search terms and other criteria.

Traditional search tools, however, are often limited in their ability tosearch, filter, and analyze large numbers of patent-related documents.While traditional search tools may locate large numbers ofpatent-related documents responsive to a query, they do not provide aneffective user interface for filtering and analyzing the patent-relateddocuments to find documents of interest to a user. Traditional searchtools also do not allow a user to search for particular patent drawingsof patent documents, which may assist a user in finding relevantpatent-related documents.

Further, existing patent-related document tools do not enable a user toverify if there is support for claim terms that are present in claims.For example, the Detailed Description of the patent-related document mayuse different terminology than a particular claim term. Although theclaim term may not have literal support, it may have non-literal supportin the form of term variants in the Detailed Description. Accordingly,there exists a need for improved search and analysis tools forpatent-related documents.

SUMMARY

In one embodiment, a computer-implemented method of evaluating a term ina patent-related document includes receiving, by a computing device, aselected term, wherein the selected term is present in thepatent-related document, generating one or more variant suggestionsrelated to the selected term, displaying the one or more variantsuggestions, receiving one or more selected variant suggestions from theone or more variant suggestions, and associating the one or moreselected variant suggestions with the selected term.

In another embodiment, a computer-implemented method of evaluating aterm in a patent-related document including displaying a list of termsappearing in the patent-related document, displaying a graphicalrepresentation of a literal support status for each term within the listof terms, wherein the literal support status indicates literal supportis or is not present within one or more patent-related documents, andreceiving, by a computing device, a selected term from the list of termsappearing in the patent-related document. The method further includesgenerating one or more variant suggestions related to the selected term,displaying the one or more variant suggestions, receiving one or moreselected variant suggestions from the one or more variant suggestions,associating the one or more selected variant suggestions with theselected term, and displaying a graphical representation of anassociation between the selected term and the one or more selectedvariant suggestions, wherein the association is indicative ofnon-literal support for the selected term.

In yet another embodiment, a computer-implemented method of evaluating aterm in a patent-related document includes displaying a list of termsappearing in a first patent-related document and a second patent-relateddocument, displaying a graphical representation of whether or notindividual terms in the list of terms appear in the first patent-relateddocument or the second patent-related document, and receiving, by acomputing device, a selected term from the list of terms, wherein theselected term does not appear within the first patent-related documentor the second patent-related document. The method further includesdisplaying one or more variant suggestions related to the selected term,receiving one or more selected variant suggestions from the one or morevariant suggestions, associating the one or more selected variantsuggestions with the selected term, and displaying a graphicalrepresentation of an association between the selected term and the oneor more selected variant suggestions, wherein the association isindicative of non-literal support for the selected term.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 schematically illustrates an exemplary system consistent with oneor more embodiments described and illustrated herein;

FIG. 2A is a flow chart depicting an exemplary process for text to imagesearching according to one or more embodiments described and illustratedherein;

FIG. 2B is a flow chart depicting an exemplary process forimage-to-image searching according to one or more embodiments describedand illustrated herein;

FIGS. 3 and 4 illustrate an exemplary graphical interface for viewingpatent images according to one or more embodiments described andillustrated herein;

FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplary graphical interface for evaluating claimterms of a patent-related document according to one or more embodimentsdescribed and illustrated herein;

FIGS. 6-8 illustrate an exemplary graphical interface for comparing twoor more patent-related documents according to one or more embodimentsdescribed and illustrated herein;

FIGS. 9A and 9B illustrate exemplary graphical interfaces of a thesaurusaccording to one or more embodiments described and illustrated herein;

FIGS. 10A and 10B illustrate exemplary graphical interfaces of athesaurus showing selection of variants and a listing of patent-relateddocuments according to one or more embodiments described and illustratedherein;

FIGS. 11A and 11B illustrate exemplary graphical interfaces of athesaurus showing various sorting options according to one or moreembodiments described and illustrated herein; and

FIGS. 12A-12C illustrate exemplary graphical interfaces of a thesaurusshowing various search options according to one or more embodimentsdescribed and illustrated herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to systems andmethods for identifying, aggregating, indexing, conceptuallyinterrelating and searching patent part expressions and their relateddrawings for enabling effective exploration of one or more partexpressions and text-to-image and image-to-image patent prior artsearching. Embodiments are also directed to systems and methods forindicating conceptual support in a specification of a patent-relateddocument for terms within claims of the patent-related document that donot have literal support in the specification. Further, embodiments arealso directed to systems and methods for indicating conceptual supportfor a term in one or more compared documents when the exact term doesnot appear in the one or more compared documents.

Embodiments disclosed herein provide systems and methods for searching aparts thesaurus for search term variants corresponding to search terms.As described in more detail below, the parts thesaurus may be generatedusing various information included in a corpus of documents. Consistentwith disclosed embodiments, the parts thesaurus may be used, inter alia,to analyze one or more documents in the corpus of documents. Thefollowing discussion may refer to various legal documents, such aspatent-related documents (for example, patents and published patentapplications). However, one of ordinary skill in the art will understandthat systems and methods consistent with the disclosed embodiments mayanalyze any type of document.

As used in the context of patent-related documents, a “part” may referto a component of an invention described in a patent-related document.For example, a part may be component of a drawing reference, which mayinclude both the part expression (i.e., part name) and an identifier,such as a reference number (or a part number). A “claim element” (or“claim term”) may refer to a component of an invention included in aclaims section of a patent-related document. In general, terms such as“phrase,” “component,” “part,” “element,” “term,” and the like, mayrefer to any word or set of words in a document.

Generally, embodiments utilize a comprehensive patent-based parts index(millions of discrete part expressions) derived exclusively from theU.S. patent corpus, although sources other than the U.S. patent corpusmay be used to derive the parts index (e.g., a PCT parts index, EPOparts index, Canadian parts index, etc). The parts index includes partvariant relationships derived from the patent text that conceptuallyinterrelate part expressions (i.e., part names) enabling users toidentify useful language variants for formulating queries, generatinganalytics, or identifying patents covering similar parts or othernumbered items appearing in patent drawings (e.g., parts, flowcharts,symbols, graphs, etc.). By retaining the “bibliographic parentage” ofthe various parts data, the parts index may be used to pinpoint patentshaving meaningful structure with specific user desired attributes.

Conceptually related part variants within the parts index define a partsthesaurus. Part variants (i.e., synonyms) may be generated based uponthe co-occurrence (i.e., pairings) of any part labels/numbers appearingwithin a single part reference, as across a series of patent-relateddocuments. These variants are provided in the parts thesaurus, which maybe accessed for query expansion, for example.

Various aspects of the parts index, determining and sorting variantsusing the parts index, parts thesaurus, and text-to-image searching aredescribed in U.S. Pat. Publ. No. 2011/0307499 entitled “Systems andMethods for Analyzing Patent Related Documents” filed on Jun. 11, 2010.

More specifically, the parts thesaurus comprises consolidated partreference data (from the parts index), wherein part variants(particularly synonyms) are generated based upon the co-occurrence(pairings) of any part labels appearing within a single part reference,as across a series of patents. For those pairings occurring only once,or having the same number of matches, the number of patents containingboth synonyms of the pair (as within a single figure description (ideal)or as across a patent) are utilized for ranking.

Another approach of grouping parts in the part reference data as partsthesaurus entries is to group all part phrases that have the same lastword and that appear in a minimum number of patents. For example, theparts “door,” “front door,” and “back door” may be grouped together asan entry in the parts thesaurus, provided each was found in a minimumnumber of patents.

Yet another approach of grouping parts in the part reference data asparts thesaurus entries is to group parts that have the same part numberbut no common words together. For example, if a patent-related documentcontains “hole 10” and “opening 10,” these may be grouped as a thesaurusentry because they share no common words. If a patent-related documentcontained “front door 15” and “back door 15,” these would not be groupedtogether because both parts contain the word “door.”

In all of the above-described instances, a threshold may be set to paredown the acceptable part name candidates into variants based onfrequency (e.g., more than x-number of patent-related documents areneeded to render the candidate acceptable).

Derived part variants that do not exist separately in a patent-relateddocument may be generated by breaking existing part phrases intoindividual parts of speech and then selectively removing modificationtokens (e.g., if a patent-related document only recites “horizontalcylindrical filter,” embodiments may construct “horizontal filter,”“cylindrical filter,” and “filter” as other part phrases for the samepatent-related document).

Additionally, weighting may be applied to the strength of the synonymbond using term frequency-inverse document frequency which enables thepresentation of the variants to be made based on most-to-leastapplicable. Articles, prepositions, adjectival noise words (such asright, left, top, bottom, front, back, etc.) may be excluded as noisewords in the parts thesaurus if desired. These excluded terms may becaptured into a parallel index and clustered via selectable qualifiers(e.g., spatial indicators, physical property indicators, etc.), eachclustered variant then having their own related variants. Thus, if auser wishes to retrieve or distinguish particular parts utilizing commonqualifiers, this could be done using the variants from the parallelindex in combination with the variants from the parts index.

As described below, embodiments provide for text-to-image andimage-to-image searching. Embodiments enable users to enter a partexpression, or a combination of part expressions, and retrieve back acomprehensive image answer set that can be sorted and filtered utilizingcommon bibliographic data. If an image (i.e., a drawing of apatent-related document) of particular interest is identified, users mayinitiate a “more like this image” function to retrieve images that aresimilar to the selected image. Resultant answer sets may be availablefor further analysis and processing. Accordingly, users are able toquickly retrieve, browse, filter and identify patents having desiredpoints of structure or illustrated concepts, rendering their researchfar more efficient, productive and thorough.

Embodiments of the present disclosure also utilize the parts index andrelated parts thesaurus to assist users in identifying non-literalsupport of one or more terms in either a single patent-related documentor between compared documents. Users may desire to determine if there issupport for a claim term within the specification (e.g., the DetailedDescription section) of a patent-related document. Literal support meansthat the exact term or phrase used in the claims is recited in thecorresponding specification or disclosure. For example, the claim term“cell phone” may have literal support in the specification when thephrase “cell phone” is recited and used in the Detailed Descriptionsection of the patent-related document. In some instances, literalsupport may not be found for one or more claim terms or phrases.However, there may be conceptual support for claim terms or phraseswhere there is not literal support. Non-literal, conceptual support ispresent when a variant of a term or phrase is used in the specificationor disclosure rather than the exact term or phrase. For example, thephrase “mobile phone” may be a variant of “cell phone” as provided bythe parts thesaurus. Accordingly, non-literal, conceptual support forthe phrase “cell phone” appearing in the claims of a patent-relateddocument may be present when the phrase “mobile phone” is used in theDetailed Description section.

Another example includes the claim term “forming concrete members,”wherein the word “forming” may not have literal support in thecorresponding disclosure. In this case, variants of the word “forming”found in the disclosure, such as “manufacturing” or “casting,” mayprovide non-literal support for the claim term. Moreover, variants maybe analyzed to determine the scope of each variant relative to the claimterm. Referring to the above example, the variant “manufacturing” may bedetermined to be broader in scope than the word “forming” included inthe claim term, whereas the variant “casting” may be determined to benarrower in scope.

Similarly, embodiments may assist a user that is interested indetermining if there is literal or non-literal support for a term orphrase appearing in a first document provided in a compared document (ormultiple compared documents). For example, a user may be interested tosee if there is support for a claim term in a provisional patent withrespect to an issued patent claiming priority to the provisional patent.In another example, an issued patent may be compared with a patentpublication. As described above, variants of terms/phrases may beutilized to determine if there is non-literal, conceptual support incompared documents (e.g., non-literal, conceptual support for “cellphone” when the phrase “mobile phone” appears in a compared document).

As stated above, text-to-image searching may be performed consistentwith disclosed embodiments. Generally, parts information found in patentdrawings may be extracted and stored, in association with respectivedrawings, into a database or index. Text queries, for example, searchqueries received from a user, may then be matched against the storedparts information in the parts index to retrieve drawings containingparts information corresponding to a text query. Further, image-to-imagesearching is also provided in some embodiments, wherein drawings similarto one or more drawings may also be retrieved. Parts informationassociated with a first drawing may be compared with parts informationassociated with a second drawing. Based on one or more such comparisons,drawings determined to be similar to an initial set of drawings may beretrieved.

FIG. 1 is a diagram schematically illustrating an exemplary system thatmay be used to implement disclosed embodiments, including exemplarysystem components. The components and arrangement, however, may vary.For example, clients 10 a-10 n (collectively referred to as clients 10),network 15, and network server 20 may be implemented in various ways.Clients 10, which are configured as computing devices, may each includeone or more general purpose computers, mobile phones, or any handhelddevices capable of communication over a network. Network 15 may includea local area network (“LAN”) or other network that is a portion of alarger network or system of networks (e.g., an enterprise network).Network 15 may also include the Internet. Network server 20 may includea plurality of servers and/or other networking devices.

Clients 10 and network server 20 may include combinations of hardwareand/or software configured consistent with the teachings presentedherein. For example, clients 10 and network server 20 may include oneand/or more processors or microprocessors. Likewise, clients 10 andnetwork server 20 may include one or more volatile or non-volatile,magnetic, semiconductor, tape, optical, removable, nonremovable, orother type of storage device or computer-readable medium. Thecomputer-readable medium may store instructions that, when executed,cause the one or more processors and/or microprocessors to performfunctions consistent with disclosed embodiments. Further, clients 10 andnetwork server 20 may also be configured with an operating system (notshown), for example, Microsoft Windows™, Unix™, Linux™, Solaris™, andApple OS X™. The choice of operating system, and even to the use of anoperating system, is not critical to any embodiment. It should also beunderstood that embodiments described herein may be performed using asingle computing device without the use of a network or network server.

Text-to-image searching of patent-related documents will now bedescribed. Referring to FIG. 2A, a flow chart 30 depicting an exemplaryprocess of text-to-image searching of patent-related documents isillustrated. Initially, a search query is received at block 32. Thesearch query may be a traditional search query comprising one or moresearch terms (e.g., part names) entered into a text field by a user. Thesearch query may also be provided by selection of one or more part namesprovided in a list. In some embodiments, search queries may beformulated by using Boolean logic, whereby part names may be utilized byBoolean operators such as “AND,” “OR,” “ANDNOT,” etc. Once the searchquery is received, one or more variants are optionally obtained at block34. The variants may be obtained by utilizing the parts thesaurusdescribed above. For example, for a search query including the phrase“concrete anchor,” variants such as “ground anchor,” “expansion anchor,”“anchor assembly” and the like may be returned. In some embodiments, theuser may be enabled to select which variants he or she would like tohave searched. In other embodiments, variants are not determined.

Next, patent-related documents are searched to surface patent-relateddocuments containing the search query terms and/or variants of thesearch query terms at block 36. Because the parts index described aboveincludes part names, associated part numbers, and bibliographicinformation, the parts index may be searched using the search queryand/or variants to surface patent-related documents having drawingsrelevant to terms of the search query and/or their variants. Forexample, the parts index may be searched to locate drawings ofpatent-related documents that include part names and associated partnumbers that correspond to the terms of the search query and/or theirvariants. Next, the relevant drawings may be displayed to the user in agraphical interface at block 38.

It is noted that filters may also be utilized to limit the drawingsreturned from the text search. Example filters include, but are notlimited to, classification, inventor name, assignee name, and issue orpublication date.

Embodiments of the present disclosure also enable users to performimage-to-image searching wherein a patent drawing is used to search forsimilar patent drawings. Referring now to FIG. 2B, a flowchart 50depicting an exemplary process for image-to-image searching isillustrated. At block 52 a drawing (or drawings), such as a patentdrawing, is received. For example, a user may select a patent drawingthat is presented in a graphical interface. Next, at block 54, thesystem extracts part numbers from the selected drawing. For example,optical character recognition may be utilized to detect and extract thepart numbers from the selected drawing. The extraction process may beperformed after receiving the selected drawing, or the selected drawingmay have been pre-processed.

Next, the part names associated with the extracted part numbers areretrieved at block 56. As an example and not a limitation, an extractedpart number “10” of the selected drawing may be associated with thephrase “concrete anchor” in the text of the patent-related documentassociated with the selected drawing. In this manner, the systemdetermines all of the part names associated with the extracted partnumbers of the selected drawing. In one embodiment, the parts index maybe used to determine the part names associated with the part numbers.More specifically, the parts index includes bibliographic information(e.g., patent numbers and/or published patent application numbers)associated with the part names and part numbers stored therein.Accordingly, the parts index may be used to determine the part names forthe numbers extracted from the selected drawing of a particularpatent-related document.

In some embodiments, variants of the extracted part names may bedetermined at block 58. For example, the parts thesaurus described abovemay be accessed to determine the variants. The variants may be used forquery expansion, for example. In other embodiments, variants are notdetermined.

At block 60, the patent-related document corpus is searched for drawingsof patent-related documents containing the extracted part names and/orvariants. More specifically, the extracted part names and variants, ifutilized, are used as a search query to retrieve relevant patent-relateddocuments. In some embodiments, the user may select which of theextracted part names and/or variants he or she would like to search. Asan example and not a limitation, the user may choose to include thephrase “concrete anchor” but not the term “shaft” that was alsoextracted from the selected drawing.

In some embodiments, the patent-related document corpus may be searchedby searching the parts index for the extracted part names and/orvariants. Patent-related documents containing the extracted part namesand/or variants (or some portion of the part names and/or variants) maybe determined. The drawings of the returned patent-related documentscontaining the extracted part names and/or variants are determined anddisplayed to the user in a graphical interface at block 62. In thismanner, a user may perform a “more like this image” to retrieve similardrawings from other patent-related documents within the corpus. Examplefilters may also be included to filter images, such as, but not limitedto, classification, inventor name, assignee name, and issue orpublication date.

Embodiments of the present disclosure also enable users to utilize avariety of data filters, including a part expressions filter, to definea set of patent drawings having members containing the desired userattributes. Referring to FIG. 3, an example graphical interface 100 forviewing patent drawings is depicted. The illustrated graphical interface100 includes a drawing display region 112 for displaying drawings of oneor more selected patent-related documents meeting applied data filters,a patent-related document selection region 110 that allows a user toselect one or more patent-related documents to evaluate, and severalfilter regions, including a parts region 102 to filter by part namesappearing in the patent-related document, a terms region 104 to filterby terms appearing in the patent-related document, a phrases region 106to filter by phrases, and a citations region 108 to filter by citation.

Patent drawings associated with one or more patent-related documents aredisplayed in the drawing display region 112. When a particular patentdrawing is selected from the set, a list of all of the part names andpart numbers contained in the selected drawing is presented alongsidethe drawing. FIG. 4 depicts the graphical interface 100 of FIG. 3 withthe second drawing selected. The selected drawing is depicted in adrawing display region 114, and the associated part names and partnumbers are listed in a parts listing region 116. The part numbers areextracted from the selected drawing, such as by optical characterrecognition, for example. The part numbers may be extracted uponselection by the user, or may be preprocessed and available uponselection. As described above, the parts index may be utilized todetermine the part names associated with the extracted part numbers. Insome embodiments, part names selected in the parts region 102 may bebolded or otherwise indicated in the parts listing region 116. In theillustrated example, “11: cpu” is bolded to indicate that this part isselected in the parts region 102.

In some embodiments, hovering a mouse over any of the part numbersappearing in the drawing exposes the related part name in a tooltip.Clicking on a part number in the drawing, or a listed part in thelisting of parts, may navigate the user to the full text of the matchingpatent-related document wherein the selected part is discussed. Thisenables quick retrieval, inspection and filtering of those drawingshaving a specific user defined attribute, particularly as related topatent part names contained therein.

Referring now to FIG. 5, embodiments of the disclosure may be used tocheck for both literal and non-literal support for terms or phrases thatappear within claims of a patent-related document. FIG. 5 depicts agraphical interface for evaluating claim terms of a patent-relateddocument. The graphical interface 200 is illustrated as adjacent to aword processing application window 206 that displays a portion of thepatent-related document 207 under evaluation. The graphical interface200 includes a term region 201 and a claim tree region 205. The claimtree region 205 may display all or a portion of the claims in ahierarchical manner, as well as indicate whether or not there isantecedent basis for one or more terms in the claim.

The term region 201 lists each of the terms found within thepatent-related document 207. The terms displayed in the term region 201may be algorithmically determined from the text of the patent-relateddocument. The illustrated term region 201 includes three columns: anantecedent basis column 202, a description support column 203, and aparts column 204. An “X” in the antecedent basis column 202 next to aterm indicates that antecedent basis is provided for a particular term(e.g., there is antecedent basis for the claim term “anchor apex” in theillustrated example). Anteceded basis is not provided for the terms inwhich an “X” is absent (e.g., “anchor” in the illustrated example). Theparts column 204 indicates the part number assigned to the claim term inthe Detailed Description section and in the figures.

The description support column 203 provides an indication as to whetheror not there is support for the claim terms/phrases. When there isliteral support present (i.e., the system finds the exact claim term orphrase in the Detailed Description section), an “X” (or other graphicalrepresentation) is present in the description support column 203 for theparticular claim term or phrase to indicate literal support. When thereis no literal support for a claim term or phrase, an “X” is absent inthe description support column 203 next to the particular claim term orphrase.

Still referring to FIG. 5, it is noted that the system did not find theexample phrase “body section” in the Detailed Description section of thepatent-related document. Therefore, because there is no literal supportfor “body section,” an “X” is not present in the description supportcolumn 203 in the row associated with the phrase “body section.”

In embodiments disclosed herein, the user may request that the systemfind variants of a claim term or phrase to determine non-literal,conceptual support for those claim terms or phrases without literalsupport. Variants may be terms or phrases that are conceptually similarto a selected word or phrase and determined using the parts thesaurus asdescribed above (i.e., conceptual variant). Variants may also be termsor phrases that are structurally similar to the selected word or phrase(e.g., similar root terminology) (i.e., structural variant). Forexample, the phrase “mobile phone” may be a similar variant to thephrase “cellular phone” as they both share the word “phone.” Similarly,the phrase “mobile device” may be a similar variant to the phrase“mobile phone” because both phrases include the word “mobile.” Users mayselect to find variants that are conceptually similar to a selected wordor phrase (e.g., a claim term), are structurally similar to the selectedword or phrase, or both.

The parts thesaurus may be utilized to determine and display variants ofa selected term or phrase that appears within the patent-relateddocument. The user may then review the list of displayed variants andselect one or more of the variants that he or she believe to beconceptually similar to the claim term or phrase. In this manner, theuser associates the one or more selected variants with claim term orphrase, and the system then indicates that the variant(s) and the claimterm or phrase are associated and non-literal, conceptual support isprovided. The description support column 203 may provide a graphicalindication on user-defined non-literal support. In the illustratedembodiment, a “U” is provided rather than an “X” to indicatenon-literal, conceptual support. It should be understood that othergraphical representations of non-literal support may be used.

As an example and not a limitation, a user may right-click (or otherwiseselect) the claim phrase “body section” to generate a variant display208 that lists potential variants associated with “body section” (e.g.,variants found by the “search for similar” and/or “search forconceptual” methods described above). In some embodiments, when the userselects a claim term or phrase (e.g., “body section”), a pop-up menu mayappear that prompts the user to select “search similar” (i.e., findstructurally similar variants as described above) or to select “searchconceptual” (i.e., find conceptually similar variants as describedabove). The option to find both structurally similar and conceptuallysimilar variants (and/or to search both types) may also be provided.

In other embodiments, a user may highlight, click, or otherwise select aterm or phrase within the actual text of the document (e.g., a part namein the Detailed Description of a patent-related document). A pop-up menumay appear to either display a list of variants, or prompt the user toselect how he or she would like to find variants (e.g., search similar,search conceptual, or both as described above). Selection of variantterms or phrases in the list may then navigate the user to the instancesof the selected variant(s) within the text of the document.

It should be understood that there are other ways of presenting the listof variants and that embodiments are not limited to the variant display208. The phrase “body section” may be applied to the parts thesaurus togenerate a list of variants. This list of variants may then be comparedwith the terms and phrases appearing in the text of the patent-relateddocument. Those variants that appear within the text of thepatent-related document may then be presented to the user in the variantdisplay 208. The user may then select (e.g., by use of a mouse or atouch screen input) one or more of the variants displayed in the variantdisplay 208. In the illustrated embodiment, the user has selectedvariant “body portion” to be associated with the claim phrase “bodysection” displayed in the claim term region 201 of the graphicalinterface 200. The description support column 203 may then be updatedwith a “U” (or other indicator) in the row associated with “bodysection” to indicate that non-literal, conceptual support is present.Selection of the claim phrase “body section” may then highlight (and/ornavigate the user to) the instances of claim phrase “body section” aswell as variant “body portion” in the text of the patent-relateddocument.

It is noted that the embodiments of determining and displaying variantsdescribed above may be utilized when viewing or editing electronicdocuments other than patent-related documents. Further, the variantsdescribed herein may be utilized for purposes other than finding supportfor claim terms and phrases within a patent-related document. Variantsof selected terms or phrases may be determined and displayed within anytype of document to assist the user in navigating within the document toterms and/or phrases that are similar to the selected term or phrase. Asan example and not a limitation, a user may be viewing a scientificjournal article about a particular topic and finds term X interesting.He or she may highlight or select term X to generate a list of variantsoccurring with the present document. Such variants may be variant termsX′, X″, and X′″. The user may then select a variant term X′, X″, or X′″to navigate to the location of such a selected variant term within thetext of the present document. In this manner, the user may navigate tosections of the scientific journal that discuss one or more topicssimilar to the discussion regarding selected term X.

Referring now to FIG. 6, embodiments may also enable users to comparedocuments to determine if support for one or more claim terms/phrases isfound in a compared document. As an example and not a limitation, a usermay desire to determine if a claim term that appears in an issued patentis supported by a provisional patent application to which the issuedpatent claims priority. FIG. 6 depicts a graphical interface 300 forcomparing two or more patent-related documents. The graphical interface300 is depicted as adjacent to a word processing application window 206that displays a portion of one of the patent-related documents 207 underevaluation. The example graphical interface 300 of the illustratedembodiment comprises a claim tree region 305, a claim language region307, and a terms region 301. The claim tree region 305 may display allor a portion of the claims in a hierarchical manner, as well as indicatewhether or not there is antecedent basis for one or more terms andphrases in the claim. The claim language region 307 may display the textof a selected claim.

The terms region 301 displays claim terms and phrases, terms foundanywhere in the patent-related document, and phrases (i.e., multi-wordterms) found anywhere in the document. In the illustrated embodiment,the “Claim Elems” radio button is selected to display in a list onlythose terms and phrases appearing in the claims. It is noted that FIG. 6displays only a sub-set of claim terms and phrases appearing in theclaim sets of the compared patent-related documents. The “Changed Only”selection box 302 allows a user to view only those terms or phrases thathave changed between compared documents. It should be understood thatall claim terms and phrases may be displayed by deselecting the “ChangedOnly” selection box. The terms region 301 has a first column 303associated with a first compared patent-related document and a secondcolumn 304 associated with a second compared patent-related document.The names of the patent-related documents may also be provided. As anexample and not a limitation, hovering a mouse over the first and secondcolumn 303, 304 indicators may display the name of the patent-relateddocument in a pop-up text field.

The first and second columns 303, 304 indicate whether the claim term orphrase appears within that particular patent-related document, as wellas if there is or is not literal support within the Detailed Descriptionsection of that patent-related document (as defined above). If the claimterm or phrase is present within the particular patent-related documentand there is literal support, an “X” (or other graphical representation)is provided in the column of the particular patent-related document andin the row associated with the claim term or phrase. As an example andnot a limitation, the claim phrase “magnetic polarity” appears withinthe patent-related document associated with the second column 304, andthere is literal support within the Detailed Description. Therefore, an“X” is present next to the claim phrase “magnetic polarity” in thesecond column 304. As another non-limiting example, the claim phrase“wire coil” appears within the claims of the patent-related documentassociated with the second column 304 but there is not literal supportwithin the Detailed Description. Therefore, a “C” (or other graphicalrepresentation) is present next to the claim phrase “wire coil” in thesecond column 304.

Therefore, claim terms and phrases may appear in one of thepatent-related documents but not in the other. Therefore, there may notbe literal support for a claim term or phrase appearing in a firstpatent-related document in a second, related patent-related document.Referring now to FIG. 7, embodiments of the present disclosure enable auser to associate claim terms and/or phrases appearing in onepatent-related document with variants of the claim terms and/or phrasesthat appear in compared patent-related documents to therefore indicatenon-literal, conceptual support between compared patent-relateddocuments.

The graphical interface 300 may allow a user to select a claim term orphrase that appears in one patent-related document but not the otherpatent-related document (or multiple other patent-related documents). Asan example and not a limitation, the system may allow a user to select aclaim term or phrase by right-clicking the claim term or phrase with amouse. This action may cause the system to generate variants of theselected claim term or phrase (e.g., by comparing the selected claimterm or phrase with the parts thesaurus). The user may have the optionto find structurally similar variants, conceptually similar variants, orboth types of variants, as described above. The text of the comparedpatent-related documents may then be searched to determine if any of thevariants are present within the compared patent-related documents.

A list of variants of the selected claim term or phrase that are used inthe text of the compared patent-related documents may be presented tothe user in a variant display 308. The variant display 308 lists suchvariants of the selected claim term or phrase. The user may then reviewthe list of variants and select one or more as applicable. Selection ofthe variant(s) associates the selected variant(s) with the selectedclaim term or phrase. In some embodiments, the graphical interface 300is then updated to indicate the association of the claim terms/phraseswith selected variants. As an example and not a limitation, the first orsecond column may be populated with a “U” (or other graphicalrepresentation) when a user has indicated non-literal, conceptualsupport by selection of variants as described herein. In someembodiments, selection of a claim term or phrase not only highlights theclaim term or phrase in the text of the patent-related document, butalso highlights any selected variants within the text. Further, thesystem may also allow the user to navigate to instances of not only theselected claim term or phrase within the text of the patent-relateddocument, but also to instances of any selected variants (e.g.,highlighted claim term 209).

In the non-limiting illustrated example, the claim phrase “magneticpolarity” is selected by the user. The variant display 308 provides theuser a list of variants of the claim phrase “magnetic polarity.” Theuser has selected variants “magnetic field” and “magnetic flux,” whichthen associates these variants with the claim phrase “magneticpolarity.” The terms region 301 may then be updated with a “U” in thefirst column 303 and the row associated with the claim phrase “magneticpolarity.” Further, instances of “magnetic polarity,” “magnetic field,”and “magnetic flux” may be highlighted in the text displayed in the wordprocessing application window 206 (e.g., highlighted text “magneticfield” in FIG. 7). The system may also allow navigation to these termswithin the text of the patent-related document.

In some embodiments, the variant display 308 also provides an indication309 as to what type of support is provided for the listed variants.Variants found in the Detailed Description section may be indicated by a“UD” in column 309 (e.g., “ferromagnetic target” illustrated in FIG. 7).Variants found in the claims may be indicated by a “UC.” Variants foundin both the claims and the Detailed Description section may be indicatedby a “UX.” It should be understood that indicators other than “UD,”“UC,” and “UX” may be utilized.

In some embodiments, parts may be compared between two or moredocuments. Referring now to FIG. 8, the graphical interface 300 is shownwherein a “Parts” 310 tab is selected to display a parts region 311. A“Changed Only” selection box 302 allows a user to view only those partsthat have changed (or are otherwise different) between compareddocuments. FIG. 8 depicts the graphical interface 300 with the “ChangedOnly” selection box 302 as deselected. All of the numbered parts betweenthe compared documents will appear in the parts region 311 when the“Changed Only” selection box 302 is deselected. Accordingly, embodimentsof the present disclosure may allow a user to see the differences (andsimilarities) between parts and their respective part numbers betweencompared documents.

Various embodiments of using a parts thesaurus will now be described.FIG. 9A illustrates a graphical interface 400, which may include aninterface presented to a user for using a thesaurus. The user may usegraphical interface 400, for example, to identify variants of user-inputterms. As described above, a “variant” of a term may include one or morewords associated with the term, such as words that are synonymous withthe term. As shown in FIG. 9A, possible variants for the term “cellphone” may include the words “phone,” “telephone,” and “cellular phone.”A variant of a term may also include words that frequently appeartogether with the term. As also shown in FIG. 9A, for example, variantsfor the term “cell phone” may also include the words “interface,”“system,” and “antenna.”

Consistent with disclosed embodiments, several different methods may beused in determining variants, some of which are described above. In oneexemplary method, drawing references in a patent-related document havingdifferent descriptions (i.e., part names) but the same identifier (i.e.,part number) may be determined to be variants of one another. Forexample the drawing references “hollow tube 10,” “cylindrical body 10,”and “empty tube 10” appearing in a patent-related document may bedetermined to be variants of one another. In another exemplary method, afirst set of variants in a first patent-related document may be linkedwith a second set of variants in a second patent-related document. Forexample, if the first set of variants includes the drawing reference“hollow tube 10,” and the second set of variants includes the drawingreference “hollow tube 24,” these references may be determined to bereferring to the same part.

Referring once again to FIG. 9A, a search query comprising one or moreterms may be input into input field 402, which is labeled as “Term(s).”Additional search criteria, such as assignee and class information forpatent-related documents, may be input into input fields 404 and 406,labeled “assignee” and “class,” respectively. Similarly, the maximumnumber of search results to display may be selected in input field 408,labeled “max. terms.” Selection fields 412 and 414 may correspond tosort options and search options, respectively, and are discussed belowwith respect to FIGS. 11A, 11B and 12A-12C. The search results, whichmay correspond to a listing of variants of the search query, may bedisplayed in output area 410.

As will be discussed with reference to FIGS. 10A and 10B below, a usermay select one or more of the variants to retrieve informationcorresponding to the patent-related documents in which the variantsappear. FIG. 9B illustrates an additional format for inputting a searchquery into input field 402. Consistent with disclosed embodiments,entering a query in the format “X=Y” may correspond to a search forequivalents, such as a search for patent-related documents that use afirst term X and a second term Y interchangeably. In the exampleprovided in FIG. 9B, the search query “concrete=cement” may determinewhether the terms “concrete” and “cement” have been discussedinterchangeably in patent-related documents. Patent-related documentsmatching this criterion (and any other selected search criteria) may belisted in output area 410.

Terms may be determined to be used interchangeably by any number ofmethods. For example, a first term may be used interchangeable with asecond term when the same part number is associated with both the firstterm and the second term, which are both part names. For example, thefirst term “hollow tube” and “cylindrical tube” may both have partnumber “10” assigned thereto. As another example, a patent-relateddocument may positively recite that a first term is an equivalent to asecond. As an example and not a limitation, a patent-related documentmay recite that “any fastener may be utilized, such as a screw, bolt ornail.” In this example, screws, bolts and nails are equivalents and maybe considered to be used interchangeably. The text of patent-relateddocuments may be analyzed to determine such equivalents between terms.

FIGS. 10A and 10B illustrate a graphical interface similar to thegraphical interface 400 discussed with respect to FIGS. 9A and 9B.Accordingly, similar reference numerals may be used in the followingdiscussion of FIGS. 10A and 10B. FIG. 10A illustrates the selection of aplurality of search term variants (i.e., “variants” or “term variants”)listed in output area 410. Specifically, the variants “telephone (560),”“terminal (68),” and “station (27)” have been selected in FIG. 10A. Thenumber in parenthesis next to each variant may indicate the number ofpatent-related documents meeting the search criteria in which thevariant occurs. Based on the selection of variants, a listing ofpatent-related documents may then be listed in output area 410 uponselection of button 415, as shown in FIG. 10B. This listing may providea citation identifier (e.g., patent number, published patent applicationnumber) and description (e.g., title) for each patent-related document,thereby displaying a plurality of citations.

FIGS. 11A and 11B illustrate a graphical interface similar to thegraphical interface 400 discussed above. Accordingly, similar referencenumerals may be used in the following discussion of FIGS. 11A and 11B.FIG. 11A illustrates various sorting options 412 that may be applied tothe search results to be listed in output area 410. The sorting optionsmay include “co-occurrence,” “frequency,” “alphabetical,” and “reverseword,” and may be displayed in selection field 412 (e.g., in a drop-downmenu format).

Selecting “co-occurrence” sorting option may sort the search resultsbased on the total number of patent-related documents including both thesearch query (provided in to input field 402) and each respective termvariant. In the illustrated example, the term variant “phone” co-occurswith the search term “cell phone” in the most number of patent-relateddocuments.

Selecting “frequency” may sort the search results based on thecumulative number of times each respective variant appears within theset of patent-related documents. For example, as illustrated in FIG.11A, while the variant “terminal (68)” may appear together with thesearch query term “cell phone” 68 times in patent-related documents, itmay appear by itself in the set of patent-related documents a muchgreater number of times. Selecting the “alphabetical” sort option maysort the search results (i.e., the variants) in alphabetical order.

Finally, selection of the “reverse word” sorting option may sort thesearch results based on noun roots in reverse order. For instance, asshown in FIG. 11B, the variant “assistant (3),” which may be considereda noun root, is listed before other variants containing the word“assistant,” such as “digital assistant (3),” (also a noun root) and“personal digital assistant (3).”

FIGS. 12A-12C illustrate a graphical interface similar to the graphicalinterface 400 described above. Accordingly, similar reference numeralsmay be used in the following discussion of FIGS. 12A-12C. FIGS. 12A-12Cillustrate various search options that may be used in conjunction withother search criteria associated with a search query provided into inputfield 402. The search options may include “look up,” “display filters,”and “unique expressions only,” and may be displayed in a selection field414. It should be understood that more or fewer search options may bedisplayed in the selection field 414.

As shown in FIG. 12A, selecting the “look up” search option for thesearch query “cell phone” may provide a listing of terms beginning withthe phrase “cell phone” in output area 410. The “look up” search optionmay also provide a listing of terms containing the phrase “cell phone”or ending with the phrase “cell phone.” Selecting one of these terms mayenable the retrieval of term variants related to the selection. Inaddition, the search option “display filters” may be used to filter termvariants by bibliographic information. As illustrated in FIG. 12B,selecting the “display filters” search option may generate a set offilters beneath output area 410. The filters may, for example, includefields such as “assignee,” “US class,” and “IPC.” Different values forone or more fields may be used as criteria to filter the term variants.Finally, the search option “unique expressions only” may be used toexclude term variants containing the word or phrase in the search queryfrom the search results displayed in output area 410. For example, asillustrated in FIG. 12C, selecting “unique expressions only” when thesearch query is “cell phone” will exclude from the search results anyterm variant containing the phrase “cell phone.”

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that variousmodifications and variations can be made without departing from thespirit or scope of the invention. Since modifications, combinations,sub-combinations and variations of the disclosed embodimentsincorporating the spirit and substance of the invention may occur topersons skilled in the art, the invention should be construed to includeeverything within the scope of the appended claims and theirequivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method of evaluating aterm in a patent-related document, the computer-implemented methodcomprising: receiving, by a computing device, a selected term, whereinthe selected term is present in the patent-related document; generatingone or more variant suggestions related to the selected term; displayingthe one or more variant suggestions; receiving one or more selectedvariant suggestions from the one or more variant suggestions; andassociating the one or more selected variant suggestions with theselected term.
 2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, furthercomprising, prior to generating one or more variant suggestions,displaying a variant search option to search for structurally similarvariant suggestions, conceptually similar variant suggestions, or both.3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, further comprisingreceiving a selected variant search option, wherein: displayingstructurally similar variant suggestions if the variant search optionselected is to search for structurally similar variant suggestions;displaying conceptually similar variant suggestions if the variantsearch option selected is to search for conceptually similar variantsuggestions; and displaying structurally similar variant suggestions andconceptually similar variant suggestions if the variant search optionselected is to search for both structurally similar variants andconceptually similar variants.
 4. The computer-implemented method ofclaim 1, further comprising displaying a graphical representation of anassociation between the selected term and the one or more selectedvariant suggestions.
 5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1,further comprising displaying a user equivalents table comprising theselected term and the one or more selected variant suggestions.
 6. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the selected term is aclaim term, and the claim term does not have literal support within adetailed description section of the patent-related document.
 7. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the selected term doesnot have literal support within a compared patent-related document thatis compared with the patent-related document.
 8. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein the selected term is apart name within the patent-related document.
 9. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising navigating acursor to instances of the one or more selected variant suggestions in atext of the patent-related document.
 10. A computer-implemented methodof evaluating a term in a patent-related document displaying a list ofterms appearing in the patent-related document; displaying a graphicalrepresentation of a literal support status for each term within the listof terms, wherein the literal support status indicates literal supportis or is not present within one or more patent-related documents;receiving, by a computing device, a selected term from the list of termsappearing in the patent-related document; generating one or more variantsuggestions related to the selected term; displaying the one or morevariant suggestions; receiving one or more selected variant suggestionsfrom the one or more variant suggestions; associating the one or moreselected variant suggestions with the selected term; and displaying agraphical representation of an association between the selected term andthe one or more selected variant suggestions, wherein the association isindicative of non-literal support for the selected term.
 11. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 10, further comprising, prior togenerating one or more variant suggestions, displaying a variant searchoption to search for structurally similar variant suggestions,conceptually similar variant suggestions, or both.
 12. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising receiving aselected variant search option, wherein: displaying structurally similarvariant suggestions if the variant search option selected is to searchfor structurally similar variant suggestions; displaying conceptuallysimilar variant suggestions if the variant search option selected is tosearch for conceptually similar variant suggestions; and displayingstructurally similar variant suggestions and conceptually similarvariant suggestions if the variant search option selected is to searchfor both structurally similar variants and conceptually similarvariants.
 13. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein eachterm in the list of terms appearing in the patent-related document is aclaim term, and the literal support status indicates whether literalsupport is or is not present within a detailed description second of thepatent-related document.
 14. The computer-implemented method of claim10, further comprising displaying a user equivalents table comprisingthe selected term and the one or more selected variant suggestions. 15.The computer-implemented method of claim 10, further comprisingnavigating a cursor to instances of the one or more selected variantsuggestions in a text of the patent-related document.
 16. Acomputer-implemented method of evaluating a term in a patent-relateddocument displaying a list of terms appearing in a first patent-relateddocument and a second patent-related document; displaying a graphicalrepresentation of whether or not individual terms in the list of termsappear in the first patent-related document or the second patent-relateddocument; receiving, by a computing device, a selected term from thelist of terms, wherein the selected term does not appear within thefirst patent-related document or the second patent-related document;displaying one or more variant suggestions related to the selected term;receiving one or more selected variant suggestions from the one or morevariant suggestions; associating the one or more selected variantsuggestions with the selected term; and displaying a graphicalrepresentation of an association between the selected term and the oneor more selected variant suggestions, wherein the association isindicative of non-literal support for the selected term.
 17. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 16, further comprising, prior togenerating one or more variant suggestions, displaying a variant searchoption to search for structurally similar variant suggestions,conceptually similar variant suggestions, or both.
 18. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 17, further comprising receiving aselected variant search option, wherein: displaying structurally similarvariant suggestions if the variant search option selected is to searchfor structurally similar variant suggestions; displaying conceptuallysimilar variant suggestions if the variant search option selected is tosearch for conceptually similar variant suggestions; and displayingstructurally similar variant suggestions and conceptually similarvariant suggestions if the variant search option selected is to searchfor both structurally similar variants and conceptually similarvariants.
 19. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, whereindisplaying a graphical representation of whether or not individual termsin the list of terms appear in the first patent-related document or thesecond patent-related document further comprises: displaying a firstgraphical representation if individual terms are present in a claimssection of the first patent-related document or the secondpatent-related document, displaying a second graphical representation ifindividual terms are present in a detailed description section of thefirst patent-related document or the second patent-related document, anddisplaying a third graphical representation if individual terms arepresent in both the claims section and the detailed description sectionof the first patent-related document or the first patent-relateddocument.
 20. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein thelist of terms further comprises individual terms appearing in one ormore additional patent-related documents.